Abraham Heschel draws an image of the Sabbath from both the Hebrew Bible and the rabbinic interpretations of the scriptures to expound on the idea of the Sabbath being a sanctification of eternal time rather than temporal place. The Sabbath in this sense is not seen so much as a day of rest but as a completion of creation, a necessary part of the whole. The culmination of Heschel’s idea of Sabbath is that Sabbath connects the finite nature of the world with the eternity of time.

The origin of Sabbath rest, according to Heschel, comes from god’s resting on the seventh day of creation. The seventh day however is not just denoted by rest in scripture but by three distinct actions on God’s part; rest, blessing, and a hallowing of the day. Thus the seventh day is not simply a day of rest, but a day with a special significance, not just good as the first six days were, but holy in and of itself. Heschel also describes how the Sabbath did not come about after creation was finished, but as an integral part of the creative order. The day of rest is not a day set aside from creation but an act of creation itself. ( )

NO OF PAGES: 118 SUB CAT I: Shabbat SUB CAT II: SUB CAT III: DESCRIPTION: The thesis of this book is that Judaism is a religion of time, not space, and the Sabbath symbolizes the sanctification of time, so that "the Sabbaths are our great cathedrals."NOTES: SUBTITLE: Its Meaning for Modern Man

The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate thime rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world. (p. 10)

This is our constant problem--how to live with people and remain free, how to live with things and remain independent P.89

Wikipedia in English (4)

Elegant, passionate, and filled with the love of God's creation, Abraham Joshua Heschel's The Sabbath has been hailed as a classic of Jewish spirituality ever since its original publication-and has been read by thousands of people seeking meaning in modern life. In this brief yet profound meditation on the meaning of the Seventh Day, Heschel introduced the idea of an "architecture of holiness" that appears not in space but in time Judaism, he argues, is a religion of time: it finds meaning not in space and the material things that fill it but in time and the eternity that imbues it, so that "the Sabbaths are our great cathedrals."